The Studs Lonigan Trilogy - James T. Farrell [43]
They stopped in an alley at Fifty-second and Prairie. Old Man O’Brien bawled hell out of a sweating Negro who was putting in a load of coal. The Negro was grimed with coal dust, and perspiration came out of him in rivers. He worked slowly but steadily, shoveling the coal into a wheelbarrow, pushing it down a board and emptying it down a chute through a basement window.
They drove on, and Mr. O’Brien said:
“You got to put pepper on the tails of these eight-balls. They’re lazy as you make ‘em. A Jew and a nigger. Never trust ‘em farther than you can see ‘em. But some niggers are all right. These southern ones that know their place are only lazy. But these northern bucks are dangerous. They are getting too spry here in Chicago, and one of these days we’re gonna have a race riot, and then all the Irish from back of the yards will go into the black belt, and there’ll be a lot of niggers strung up on lampposts with their gizzards cut out... My kid here wanted to wrestle in that tournament over at Carter Playground last winter, and I’da let him, but he’d of had to wrestle with niggers. So I made him stay out. You got to keep these smokes in their place and not let ‘em get gay.”
They stopped for sodas, and Mr. O’Brien bought them each two. Studs could have caught his old man buying a kid two sodas like that. While they were sitting with their sodas, Old Man O’Brien told them of the things of yesteryear, and of plays he’d taken Johnny’s mother to. One was called Soudan, given way back in about 1903, and it was a humdinger! They killed forty-five men in the first act. Was it a play! They had shipwrecks at sea, and what not, and when the shooting started half of the audience held their heads under the seats until it ended, and when the villain came on the stage everyone kept going ssss! ssss! And the dime novels, and Nick Carter! But times had changed. Times had changed. Even kids weren’t like they used to be, they had none of the old feeling of other times, they didn’t have that old barefoot-boy attitude, and they weren’t as tough, either, and they didn’t hang around knotholes at the ball park to see the great players, not the ones around Indiana anyway. Times had changed.
They drove around. At one place, Mr. O’Brien had to see a sheeny and explain why the coal delivery had been late. The fellow talked like a regular Oi Yoi Yoi, waving his arms in front of him like he was in the signal corps of the U. S. Army. He protested, but Old Man O’Brien gave him a long spiel, and as they were leaving, the guy all but kissed Johnny’s father. When they drove on, O’Brien said to the kids:
“You got to soft soap some of these Abie Kabbibles.”
He winked at them and they laughed. Studs kept thinking of his old man and Johnny’s, and dreaming of being a kid like Mr. O’Brien had been and wishing that his gaffer was more like Mr. O’Brien... Well, anyway, he wasn’t as bad as High Collars.
It had been a great afternoon, though.
III
That night when Studs was ready to go out, he walked into the parlor. The old man and the old lady were sitting there, and the old boy was in his slippers sucking on a stogy; and the two of them were enjoying a conversation about the latest rape case in the newspapers in which the rapist was named Gogarty. Studs noticed that when he entered they shut up. He wondered what the hell did they think he was. Did they think he was born yesterday, and still believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Rabbit and storks? He wanted to tell them so, tell them in words that would show how much of a pain they gave him when they treated him as if he was only a baby. But the words wouldn’t come; they almost never came to him when he wanted them to. He stood swallowing his resentment.
The old man said:
“You know, Bill, a fellow ought to come home some time. Now when I was your age, when I was your age, I know I liked to get out with the fellows, and that’s why I can understand how you feel about bein’ a regular guy, and bein’ with the bunch, and I don’t want you to think I’m always pickin’ on you, or preachin’ to you, or tryin’ to make you into a molly-coddle, because I ain